"Then we should not seek an armistice!" Gradny-Sawz said firmly.
"Here our leaders have been looking at the longer time frame, the millen-nium of the Thousand Year Reich," Goltz said. "It is possible-I don't say likely, I say possible-that the F?hrer may decide that a few years of German humiliation now is a price that has to be paid to ensure that the Thousand Year Reich triumphs in the end."
"May I ask, Herr Standartenf?hrer, what this has to do with Argentina?" von Lutzenberger asked.
"That will be self-evident in a moment, Graf von Lutzenberger," Goltz said. "Let us say there is an Armistice of 1944, with a postwar conference following. Almost certainly, the Allies would insist on occupying all of Germany, not just the Rhineland, as they did after World War One. What's left of Germany, that is. We could expect to lose more of our territories this time than we did in 1920. The Russians will steal anything and everything they can lay their hands on. The Americans and the French and the English will debase our currency, and otherwise ruin our economy. Our technology will be stolen. Conditions in Germany will be twice, three times, ten times as bad as they were after World War One."
"It's difficult to imagine anything so terrible for Germany!" Gradny-Sawz said, horrified.
Well, that's the first thing you've said that I agree with, von Lutzenberger thought. But that's what will happen. We brought this war on ourselves, and now we have to pay for it.
"But after a few years," Goltz went on, "the Allies will tire of the expense of occupying Germany. And, having stolen all they can from us, they will know we can't pay for the expense of keeping their soldiers on our soil."
"And what will happen then?" von Lutzenberger asked evenly.
"They will leave Germany," Goltz said. "Convinced that they have stripped us to the bone."
And are you now going to tell us how Adolf will turn this defeat into vic-tory?
"Now," Goltz said, as if he were lecturing to children, "let us suppose that there was a sanctuary, a safe place, where not only large amounts of money but German technology, even German leaders, could be moved, secretly, before the Armistice of 1944."
Why am I surprised? I should be surprised that it took them this long to think of what we've already been doing for six months, moving real money out of Germany so that it can be sent back to salvage what can be salvaged from the ashes.
"You mean here?" von Lutzenberger asked evenly.
"Yes, of course here," Goltz said.
"Have our leaders come up with a means to do this?"
"The primary concern is for secrecy," Goltz said. "If there is an Armistice of 1944, there can be no trail left for the Allies to discover."
"A trail of money, you mean?" Gr?ner asked.
"In addition to other things," Goltz said.
"You're thinking of secret bank accounts in Switzerland?" Gr?ner asked.
"Switzerland is a nation of bankers," Goltz replied. "Banks are controlled by Jews. They have no secrets from each other. And with Germany on its back, funds in Swiss banks would be no safer than funds in the Dresdenerbank."
"You think the banks here would be any different?" von Lutzenberger asked.
"If they were unaware of the source of the funds, they would be," Goltz said. "These funds would not be secret funds. They would be in the hands of Ar-gentine citizens, indistinguishable from any other funds on deposit by Argen-tine citizens."
Which is exactly what Duarte and I have been doing with von Wachtstein's money. Why should I be surprised that someone else has figured this out?
"I just arrived, of course," Goltz said. "But already I have met-your dri-ver, Oberst Gr?ner-a good German, a good National Socialist, who happens to hold Argentinian citizenship. I mention this just to start your thinking. What if-what's that boy's name?"
"Loche, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Gr?ner furnished. "G?nther Loche."
"What if the Loche family's sausage business started to prosper? Began to increase their bank deposits, opened other bank accounts, acquired farm prop-erty in the country? Who would be suspicious?"
"I see what you mean," Gr?ner said.
"But there would be records in Germany," von Lutzenberger argued. "We're obviously talking about very large sums of money here."
"In the immediate future, approximately one hundred million U.S. dollars," Goltz announced, paused, and went on, "of which, I assure you, Graf von Lutzenberger, there is no record anywhere."
I think he means that figure. But one hundred million dollars, with no record? Where did they find that much money? With no record of it?